Sunday, February 14, 2010

Little Philosopher

No one ever told me that after the "why" stage there was another, even more frustrating, stage around the corner.  It's the "What do you mean?" stage.  Christin feels that this is an appropriate question to ask in any situation.  "Christin it's time for dinner."  "What do you mean?"  "Christin you left your clothes on the floor"  "What do you mean?" "Christin did you finish your schoolwork?"  "What do you mean?".
I sometimes give an extremely long answer in hopes that I will frustrate her as much as that question frustrates me.  For example:
Me:  "Christin, it's time to brush your teeth."
Christin:  "What do you mean?"
Me:  "It is seven-thirty in the pm.  It is customary to brush you teeth at this time of day.  The reason we brush our teeth at this time is because we are about to go to bed.  If you do not remove the gunk from your teeth before going to bed it will turn into plaque.  Plaque cannot be removed by your tooth brush and must be taken care of by the dentist.  So put a pea size amount of toothpaste on your red toothbrush and brush every single part of every single tooth and your tongue and cheeks."
Usually during the lengthy explanation she interrupts several times with "Maaahhhmom" (is that the appropriate spelling for the long drawn out version of mom?  I had moooom but that made me think of a cow which made me feel badly about myself, but I digress)
 Anyway, I just keep talking and hope that one day she will grow out of the "What do you mean?" stage.

4 comments:

Rebecca said...

Haha! that's awesome! You should tell her that she has to extend it to "what do you mean by that?" and then you could always just respond "somebody needs a hug!"
Tell her I love her!
I love you!

Cyndee said...

How about "I mean you are going to be in big trouble if....." :-)

Joel said...

haha Rebecca...

Maybe you should start learning another language, so that when she asks what you mean, you can just repeat the same thing in Spanish or something.

strunhea

www.adventureswithaidan.org said...

My little guy asks me all th time if I know what he means!! these litle people are too funny!

Here is what we were doing and learning this summer when I should have been blogging:)